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Support for All? Confronting Racism and Patriarchy to Promote Equitable Learning Opportunities through Undergraduate Calculus Instruction

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Abstract

Undergraduate calculus instruction is a contributor to racialized and gendered trends of STEM persistence and disidentification with mathematics. However, the nature of instruction that promotes equitable learning opportunities for disrupting such negative outcomes and experiences among historically marginalized populations is underexplored. To fill this gap, this paper presents an analysis of 34 undergraduate Black and Latina/o students’ perceptions of discouraging events and alternatives for supportive practices in calculus instruction to build theory of equitable practices. Our findings show how supportive-for-all practices – instructional practices supportive for all students (e.g., creating space for questions and mistakes, extending out-of-class support) – were perceived as necessary yet insufficient to cultivate equitable opportunities for classroom participation and access to content. Black and Latina/o participants’ perceptions of instruction addressed how, without challenging broader influences of racism and patriarchy (e.g., stereotypes of mathematical ability), historically marginalized students have limited access to learning opportunities afforded by supportive-for-all practices. The present study, therefore, demonstrates how equitable calculus instruction requires race- and gender-conscious enactment of supportive practices, which challenges colorblind and gender-neutral assumptions of uniformity in students’ experiences of instruction that leave structural forms of exclusion unchecked. We conclude with implications for practice and research.

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Notes

  1. Participants from Latin American backgrounds in our study identified as either Latina women or Latino men, so we use those racial identity descriptors when referring to them. Elsewhere in the paper, when referring to people from Latin American backgrounds in general, we use the descriptor Latin*. The asterisk in Latin* considers fluidity in gender identities across the Latin American diaspora (Salinas, 2020). Latin* responds to (mis)use of Latinx, a term reserved for gender-nonconforming peoples of Latin American origin and descent (Salinas & Lozano, 2019).

  2. The nature of university calculus courses varies internationally (Petropoulou et al., 2020). In some countries (e.g., Greece, Israel), the courses have a theoretical focus on the behavior of real numbers, sequences and series, and real functions. Calculus courses in other countries (e.g., Ireland, U.S.) have a computational focus on continuous change in real numbers. Despite this variation in content, calculus plays a common role across national contexts as one of the first courses that students must take to be granted access to more advanced mathematics and STEM majors. We center this international role of calculus in our literature review while recognizing that course contexts specific to the nature of mathematical content across empirical studies differed.

  3. The use of lowercase W for white racial identity and uppercase B for Black racial identity challenge symmetrical treatment of racial groups through language as a form of resistance against white supremacy (Appiah, 2020).

  4. Afrikaans was the primary language of the former South African apartheid until 1994 when English became the lingua franca, but first-language English speakers remained in the population minority at the time of the study.

  5. IOL (inquiry-oriented learning) and IBL (inequity-based learning) are two traditions of IBME in undergraduate mathematics (Laursen & Rasmussen, 2019).

  6. The research team for the larger study inadvertently left pronouns (he/him and she/her) signaling instructors’ and students’ binary gender identities in some events used for individual interviews. Despite this oversight, we asked participants if their event perceptions changed if instructors’ and students’ gender identities were different.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Vanderbilt University - Peabody College of Education & Human Development, Nashville, United States

    Luis A. Leyva

  2. Rutgers University, New Jersey, United States

    Kristen Amman, Emily A. Wolf McMichael, Joanne Igbinosun & Nisha Khan

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  1. Luis A. Leyva
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Correspondence to Luis A. Leyva.

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We are grateful for provided feedback from R. Taylor McNeill, Keith Weber, and fellow members of the COURAGE research team during early stages of conceptualizing and drafting our paper. We have no conflict of interest to disclose. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under DUE-IUSE 1711553 & DUE-IUSE 1711712.

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Leyva, L.A., Amman, K., Wolf McMichael, E.A. et al. Support for All? Confronting Racism and Patriarchy to Promote Equitable Learning Opportunities through Undergraduate Calculus Instruction. Int. J. Res. Undergrad. Math. Ed. 8, 339–364 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40753-022-00177-w

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